Eating Habits
When most people hear the words healthy eating or eating habits, they immediately thing of strict diets, counting calories, not eating the foods you love, or being unrealistically thin. That’s not it at all and very far from reality. It’s all about be more energetic, feeling better each day, and staying healthy by learning the basics of nutrition and making it work for you, not the other way around.
By “eating smart” we need to try and grasp the concept that it’s not about what you eat but how you eat. It’s a well-documented fact that healthy eating habits reduce the risk of illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and fighting against depression. Some of the other benefits of eating healthy include energy boosts, keeping your mood consistent, and sharpening your memory.
Let’s go over a few tips that you can easily use in your day-to-day operation of life.
1. Take small steps – in order to make this a successful venture in your life, you have to focus on taking small steps to make your habits better instead of one big drastic change. Taking small steps makes it an easy transition and the only success you will get from doing a complete turnaround is that of failure and frustration.
a. Simplify your diet – don’t’ worry about measuring the portion sizes or counting calories. Instead, think of your diet in ways of freshness, variety, and choices. Look at the foods you eat and see if you can find ways of incorporating a couple of fresh ingredients.
b. Start slow – habits aren’t formed overnight and neither will your eating habits. Take small steps in making things better like adding a salad to your diet once a day and instead of using butter in your recipes use olive oil. When you are noticing that your small steps are becoming a habit, you’ll want to continue to keep adding on to this. An example of this is when I made it a habit to start eating less bread, the thought of getting a hamburger from a fast food place didn’t sound so good because I immediately thought about how the bread would feel in my stomach!
c. Every little change will matter – to have a healthy diet, perfection is not the key nor do you have to get rid of all the foods you enjoy. We’re not looking at converting overnight but to make this a life long process with a goal of feeling good, having more energy, and reducing the risk of cancer and other diseases. Everybody will have some stumbles, don’t’ let this take you off track.
The other topic I’d like to go over is moderation. Another common misconception that people have about eating habits is that it’s either all or nothing. That’s not the case at all but what we do need to learn about is that the foundation to any diet is moderation. A proper balance of protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals are all needed to stay healthy and getting these from the foods you eat are easier than you imagine.
Don’t think of foods as being “off limits”. It’s like a taboo, if you say you can’t have that food, you’ll want it more! When you finally give in then you feel like a complete and total failure and most stop right then with changing their eating habits by convincing themselves that they can’t do it. If you want something that is sweet, salty, or unhealthy then do it. The best approach is to reduce how much you have and how often you have it. After a while, you’ll start craving these less and less and thinking of them as treats for doing so good.
The last item we’ll talk about is thinking about smaller portions. It’s amazing lately how big serving sizes have gotten. While watching a show the other day on eating habits, they mentioned how the size of your plate determines your eating habit. I thought that was crazy. But, if you think about it, people are under the notion that to eat healthy means by eating everything on their plate, no matter the size. When you’re at home, use a smaller plate. Also think of your food servings in visual sizes. When you have a serving of meat, fish, or chicken it should be about the size of a deck of cards. If they aren’t, that’s’ easy, get a knife and cut it down!
We’ll go over a lot more tips and habits but I don’t want to get you in overload. Read again what we went over above and just think about ways you can apply this to your everyday life. Remember to take it slow. You didn’t get this way over night so be realistic and take small steps. We’re not trying to get healthy and slimmer overnight, this is for the rest of your life.
